How to compare multiple files?

The context

For a project, we had to create over 100 virtual machines (VM), each one with specific caracteristics: OS, # CPU, RAM, # disks, disk space... About 1/3 VM are Windows, 2/3 Linux.

I maintain a MS Access Database with the requested VM.

The project is near ending; for quality control, I need to validate what is delivered vs. what was requested. My sysadmins went on almost(*) all the VM to get the caracteristics; the result is 2 text files, one for Windows and one for Linux.

*: This is important. I don't have all the VM yet, hence I will have to do this process again; this have to be taken into account in my solution.

How to compare the data?

Method 1: by hand

Boring, tedious and highly error prone. Forgotten.

Method 2: using Excel

I tried that first. But I'm not a king on Excel, and because the caracteristics are quite different between Linux and Windows, is't hard to make comparisons. Abandoned.

Method 3: using Access

This is actually the most logical way, because my initial source of information is already in Access. Moreover, I do SQL for many years, so I feel comfortable to compare the servers with it (despite Access's SQL is somehow different from standard).

However, because the caracteristics are different between each server, a import from the text file did not yield good results.

But wait! Access is able to manage XML... let's try that.

What I've done?

I've merged the 2 text files

I've transform the raw text file into XML with a basic text editor; tedious, and I made a lot of errors, but with the help of online XML syntax checker, I've ended with a clean file.

Update: gathering data with Ansible

I now have access to an Ansible console; this will allow me to gather the data on a regular basis. Sadly, Ansible output format is JSON, and not XML. However, JSON can easily be transformed to XML with online tools such as https://www.freeformatter.com/json-to-xml-converter.html